1. Field of Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate to electronic mail communication systems and methods, and, in particular embodiments, to electronic mail communication in multilevel communication programs.
2. Background Technology
Electronic mail (email) is rapidly becoming a significant tool for communication within organizations and between organizations and outside parties such as their customers. One application of electronic mail communication is the electronic newsletter, which typically includes promotional material, advertising, event related information and articles on subjects of interest to a target audience such as customers or employees.
Conventionally the development of an electronic newsletter is handled by the company itself, while distribution is performed by the company using its own email server or by an external hosted service. A number of tasks are involved in creating and distributing an electronic newsletter, including writing articles to be included in the newsletter, writing promotional messages or event invitations to be included in the newsletter, entering the aforementioned information into a mailing program, distributing the newsletter electronically at an appropriate time and date, gathering and entering email addresses of recipients, removing email addresses of recipients who do not want to receive mailings in the future, removing invalid email addresses, and resending to email addresses where there is a temporary problem at the time of the initial mailing.
One approach to simplifying the production of electronic newsletters is to utilize a third party solution that enables the company to delegate newsletter production responsibilities to a third party whose economies of scale allow it to perform the same tasks at lower cost. Current examples of such solutions are the iMakeNews service, which is provided through a web site of the same name operated by eLetra Corporation, and the Constant Contact service provided by Roving Software Inc. and described at the website roving.com. These services provide web based electronic newsletter templates that allow a user to manually enter desired content and to format that content in accordance with various predefined layouts. The iMakeNews service also enables the user to select reprints of syndicated preexisting content from commercial databases for inclusion in their newsletter. Both third party services further provide distribution and mailing list management.
Despite these features, presently available electronic newsletter services are not adaptable to the types of marketing program management structures typically employed by multilevel business organizations. The presently available electronic newsletter services are based on a one-to-one paradigm, in which the newsletter reflects the message of a single participant who chooses all of its content. Thus these services do not address the marketing needs of multilevel organizations, in which, for example, it may be desirable for a high level organization such as a manufacturer to coordinate its marketing efforts with lower level organizations such as regional distributors or individual dealers. In addition, the presently available electronic newsletter services are based on a single user model, in which all newsletter creation functions are performed by a single user. Thus these services do not address the needs of larger marketing programs, in which several people may be involved in different phases of the newsletter creation process.
Various embodiments of the invention relate to systems and methods for providing electronic mail communication services. Various embodiments of the invention provide a variety of features not afforded by the conventional electronic mail communication services such as the conventional newsletter services.
In accordance with one embodiment of the invention, an electronic mail communication system may be configured in accordance with a communication program comprising a hierarchy of participants, with each participant having a relative level of authority within the communication program for using system tools to create email messages. This may be employed, for example, to enable higher level participants to mandate the types of content and specific pieces of content that will be included in email messages sent on behalf of lower level affiliated participants within the hierarchy. In another example, this may be employed to enable a participant at a given level to generate system reports reflecting system information directly related to that participant""s level, or to generate reports reflecting an aggregate of system information related to that participant""s level and to participants at lower affiliated levels.
In accordance with a further embodiment of the invention, an electronic mail communication system may include an email list manager that enables the creation of multiple email lists that may be affiliated with participants within the communication program. This may be employed, for example, to enable a low level participant to use only its affiliated lists, and to enable a higher level participant to use lists comprising the lists of affiliated lower level participants, or to use its own list.
In accordance with a further embodiment of the invention, an electronic mail communication system may include tools requiring varying user access levels for their use. This may be employed to enable the creation of different types of system users wherein some users have access to all tools including critical administrator level tools, while other users have limited access to a subset of noncritical general level tools, or to low level data entry tools. For example, administrator level users may be granted exclusive use of tools such as an email approval tool to restrict authority for email approval to a select group of users.
In accordance with a further embodiment of the invention, an electronic mail communication system may include system supplied content that a user is enabled to select for inclusion in an email message. The system content is organized by subject so that the user can easily locate content that will be of interest to a particular interest group to whom the email message will be distributed. This frees the user from needing to generate all newsletter content itself.
In accordance with a further embodiment of the invention, an electronic mail communication system may include system supplied third party advertisements that a user is enabled to select for inclusion in an email message such as an email newsletter.
In accordance with a further embodiment of the invention, an electronic mail communication system may include tools for defining various types of user supplied content. These tools may be used, for example, to define a user content type such as a promotion, which in turn enables users to supply specific promotions that may then be included in email messages created using the system.
In accordance with a further embodiment, a system may include a system content database storing system content items of predefined types such as those discussed above, and a user content database storing user content items of predefined types such as those discussed above. The system may further include a plurality of system tools for creating an email message from system content and user content.
In accordance with a further embodiment, a system may include a system content manager such as described above that is accessible to third party system content suppliers. Thus third party content suppliers are enabled to supply original content such as articles or advertisements that may then be used by the communication program participants in their messages. The system may further include a user content manager such as described above, an email manager such as described above, and an email list manager such as described above.
In accordance with another embodiment, a system may comprise at least one processor and computer readable storage media coupled to the at least one processor. The computer readable storage media may store programming instructions that cause the system to provide tools for creating electronic mail messages, to create an electronic mail message in accordance with input provided by system users, and to distribute the electronic mail message on behalf of a participant. The system may be configured so that respective sets of said tools are accessible to respective participants. Therefore, a message may be created based on input received from system users affiliated with different participants within the communication program. Each system user may have access to a set of the tools based on the user""s participant affiliation.
In accordance with a further embodiment, an electronic mail communication system may be implemented by providing a plurality of tools for creating an electronic mail message. A hierarchy of participants within a communication program to be serviced by the system may then be defined. The system is thereafter configured to make respective sets of the tools accessible to the users affiliated with each participant. Relationships among related tools are also defined. The relationships allow the use of a given tool on behalf of a given participant to control the uses of tools related to that tool by lower affiliated participants. This implements hierarchical authority among the communication program participants in the creation of messages.
The following description of preferred embodiments discloses a variety of additional features that may be implemented in conjunction with the various embodiments summarized above and in further combinations that will be apparent to those having ordinary skill in the art.